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Theater Review: HOME (On Tour at The Broad Stage)
A HOME RUN What do you think of when you think of home? Is it the place where you were born? Is it where you are living now? Is it where you followed your growth by measuring yourself against one of its walls? Is it the home you built? Is it the home you inherited…
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Music Preview: ACADEMY OF ST MARTIN IN THE FIELDS WITH JOSHUA BELL, VIOLIN (The Soraya)
I’LL BE THERE WITH BELL ON Many know that Academy of St Martin in the Fields is a touring and recording chamber orchestra founded by Sir Neville Marriner in 1958. But did you know that since 2011 the world-renowned virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell has been their Music Director? Next to Marriner, who turns 90 next…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF MORON (Tour)
STAND-UP MEETS SELF-HELP It’s a singular solo show: Creator of The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron, satirist Robert Dubac now delivers Book of Moron, an 85-minute riff on reality and all its threats. Delivering rapid-fire, hit-and-run observations about contemporary consciousness, this driven lecturer imagines himself coming out of the coma of everyday existence to embark on…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF MORMON (Tour)
I CAN ALWAYS USE MORE MEN Well, here’s a national tour that isn’t resting on its laurels. Somewhat tighter with impeccably glorious performances, a golden angel high above at the center of a light-filled proscenium arch seems to trumpet, The Book of Mormon is here to douse your doldrums with a delirious, dandy delight. It…
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Theater Review: SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL (National Tour)
DISCO’S ONCE AND FUTURE DIVA As the song says, “Dim All The Lights” — or set them to scorching splendor. Anyway, the giant mirror ball is back, scintillating and scattering flecks of light throughout the Nederlander Theater. The ensemble is gallivanting in sequin suits and skirts. The song is “Last Dance,” the final exaltation in…
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Theater Review: RIVERDANCE (25th Anniversary Tour)
STILL STEPPING This Irish extravaganza is celebrating its 25th anniversary, a quarter century of Celtic thunder as thousands of feet have pounded countless floorboards. What Stomp offered to percussive street-dancing and Forever Tango did for Argentina’s national cooch dance, Riverdance breathtakingly delivers to Irish dance and its cultural spin-offs. Wowing rapt crowds in a tour to mark…
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Theater Review: FOR THE LOVE OF A GLOVE (Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan Theater in Los Angeles)
IF THE GLOVE FITS… On the heels of Leaving Neverland — the jaw-dropping 2019 documentary that explores the sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson — comes the world premiere of a musical that posits a bizarre, untold story of the King of Pop. For the Love of a Glove is a ribald, lampooning satire that…
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Theater Review: THE LAST SHIP (National Tour)
A SHIP THAT REMAINS DOCKED Sting’s musical The Last Ship has been in a shakedown cruise since it opened in Chicago six years ago. Based on last night’s star-studded opening night at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles, this retooled version sadly remains docked. Sure, it’s got a decent new book that jettisons jetsam from the…
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Theater Review: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (Nat’l Tour)
A TREE GROWS IN THE ANTILLES In 1990, eight years before he wrote Ragtime, Stephen Flaherty composed an eclectically exotic score for this one-act fairy tale. It’s the forthright story of a French Antilles peasant girl and the rich boy whom she adores to the unreciprocated end. Well-cooked in Lynn Aherns’ supple lyrics, Flaherty’s warm “Margaritaville”…
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Theater Review: VOLTA (Cirque du Soleil)
PLENTY OF WATTAGE, EVEN WITH AN OBSCURE STORY Cirque du Soleil is back with its latest touring show, which opened last night, January 21, at Dodger Stadium. At its best, Volta provides all the pleasures of a Cirque production — knockout acts of grace, athleticism, skill, creativity, and danger. The show does have difficulties associated…
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Concert Preview: LILLIAS WHITE (Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa)
MY WHITE NIGHT I first saw Lillias White when she made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981; I’ve been watching her work for almost four decades since, and I promise you she never fails to blow the roof off the joint (happy are those who saw her “Effie” in the 1987 revival of Dreamgirls)….
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Theater Review: IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS (National Tour)
LET THEM SING AND WE’RE HAPPY Given the daylight deprivation that comes with December, music works like light to dispel the darkness. This musical couldn’t be brighter: White Christmas, of course, salutes the similarly named 1954 film that itself builds on the 1944 delight Holiday Inn, the film that in the middle of a war premiered the…
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Theater Review: FROZEN (National Tour)
CAN FROZEN MELT YOUR HEART? Direct from Broadway, Disney’s Frozen officially kicks off its national tour at the Hollywood Pantages after a tryout in Schenectady, NY, and it’s the hygge snowblast we need. Based on the 2013 Academy Award-winning animation (currently the 15th highest-grossing film of all time), this stage musical adaptation — directed with…
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Theater Review: ‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE (Cirque du Soleil in Chicago and New York)
CHRISTMAS AS A CIRCUS There’s a beloved poem behind these multiple circus acts in one act: Clement Moore was never that fond of his famous 1837 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas (better known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas). Written in a jog-trotting anapestic tetrameter, the now-treasured verse was for its author a mere…
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Theater Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
50 YEARS SINCE ITS BIRTH AND JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR FINALLY RISES AGAIN Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is given the rock concert treatment for its 50th Anniversary Tour, and that’s precisely what it needs to soar. It’s a mash-up of stadium staging with lead actors holding microphones and stands, music video,…
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Theater Review: MIKE BIRBIGLIA’S THE NEW ONE (Tour at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)
TOSSING OUT THE BABY BUT KEEPING THE BATHWATER Reluctance takes center stage in Center Theater Group’s production of Mike Birbiglia’s theatrical child The New One. In his 2018 one-man show, the comedian confesses to cold feet at his wife’s suggestion of having a child. That aversion to risk unfortunately finds its way to Birbiglia’s script,…
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Dance Review: LA BAYADÈRE (Mariinsky Ballet at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
A TEMPLE FOR BALLET Segerstrom Hall is now filled with the gorgeous melodies of a late-blooming classical ballet from 1877. With an infectious score by Ludwig Minkus, La Bayadère premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1877 at the Imperial Russian Ballet, choreographed by the great Marius Petipa (who would go on to greater glory with…
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Dance Preview: GEORGE BALANCHINE’S JEWELS (Mariinsky Ballet at the Music Center)
STILL PRICELESS, BRIGHT AND SHINY The astounding Mariinsky Ballet from St. Petersberg is coming to the Southland for two engagements. The first at Segerstrom Center for the Arts this weekend will feature Petipa’s great Russian classic La Bayadère. Next weekend, October 24-27, The Music Center hosts the company — truly, one of the best globally…
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Review: 217 BOXES OF DR. HENRY ANONYMOUS (Freud Playhouse at UCLA)
UNMASKING A GAY HERO There is a method of political activism called a “zap.” Basically, zaps are militant but non-violent face-to-face confrontations with persons in positions of authority, but when used in tandem with a media alert, they can be powerful weapons when furthering a cause. Since gay activists in the late 1960s and early…
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Theater Review: ANASTASIA (National Tour)
ON ANASTASIA, AMNESIA, AND ANESTHESIA First came the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered in 1918 just after the Bolshevik Revolution, most likely by Vladimir Lenin’s secret police. Then came the rumors that she was still alive. Then came the imposters, keeping alive one of…
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